Ultimate Prey (Book 3 Ultimate CORE) (CORE Series)

by Kristine Mason

  She cringed and rubbed her arms. “How do you know we won’t run across another one that didn’t have its breakfast?”

  He led her around and past the python, then tried to pick up the tracks again. “I don’t, but like I said, they’re not interested in humans. If you were a deer or raccoon you might want to worry, though.” Then he explained what type of snake it was and how, with no natural predators in the Everglades, their numbers had increased. “That one looked to be about eight to ten feet. Barney claims he’s seen one around twenty-plus, but he’s a bullshitter.” Although he had seen photos of a python eating an alligator, so maybe Barney hadn’t been too full of it.

  She kept her eyes locked on the snake, even after they’d passed it.

  “Seriously, Lola, don’t worry about those snakes. They’re more afraid of you.”

  “If I were ten feet long and could squeeze the life out of something, I don’t think I’d be afraid of a whole lot,” she said with a nervous chuckle, then looked to the ground. “Have we lost Jackass’s prints?”

  “Unfortunately, but we might pick them back up about twenty yards ahead.”

  She looked forward and wrinkled her forehead. “Do I want to know what’s up ahead?”

  Probably not. “See how dark the ground looks?” he asked pointing straight. “That’s water, and a sign that we’re about to come up to a channel.”

  “How do you know it’s not a marsh like the one you swam through?”

  “By the trees. Those scaly skeletal limbs shooting up from the ground are the roots to black mangroves.”

  She squinted. “Those are trees? But they’re in the water.” Although Lola wasn’t here as a tourist, she reacted just like the many vacationers he’d take on airboat tours.

  Since he’d grown up in the area, the mangroves were nothing unusual to him. Yes, they were eerie-looking, but also uniquely beautiful and important to the local environment.

  “I know. Crazy, huh? Remember how I said things would become tricky? Climbing through an area filled with mangroves isn’t easy. There’s not going to be much, if any, dry ground.”

  “And snakes?”

  “Stay on the roots if you can, but those boots you’re wearing will protect you if we encounter any.” When the foliage coating the ground thinned, he canvassed the area hoping to pick up Jackass’s, or Ian’s and Cami’s tracks. After having no luck, he looked west and wondered if Ian and Cami had abandoned the idea of heading into the mangroves and stuck to the woodlands, instead. “I think we should head—”

  “Doesn’t that look like a muddy handprint?” Lola asked, sloshing through a few inches of water. “Right there, about four trees in.”

  He quickly moved next to her, and stared at where she pointed. “Sure does.” He refocused on the ground and walked east. After about ten or so yards, he crouched. “Got something.”

  “Boot prints?”

  “Toes,” he said with a grin.

  She came up beside him. “If there’s no boot print, then maybe Jackass lost their trail, too,” she said, hope rising in her tone. “God, Ryan, if we could catch up to them before he does…”

  “Yeah, but he’d still need to be stopped.” He stood. “I don’t know about you, but I’d want this guy dead. Who’s to say he wouldn’t try something like this again?”

  She stared at him for a moment, her golden eyes intense, curious. “Did Dante tell you to kill him?”

  “I’m not a hired assassin.” Not anymore.

  “You didn’t answer the question,” she said.

  “Let me hit you with one, instead. Dante wasn’t too concerned about the rental house or the Mazda I found being secured as a crime scene. Why is that? What does he plan to do with Jackass?”

  Her knuckles whitened as she gripped the straps of her pack. “Did you compromise it?”

  “With Dante’s permission. Which makes me wonder if he’ll encourage Harrison and Vlad to do the same when they reach Marquette’s house. At this point, CORE hasn’t been following proper police procedure. I’d think they could get in trouble for taking the law into their own hands.”

  Her eyes widened before she looked to the mangroves. “We should go.”

  “You didn’t answer the question,” he said, repeating her words. There hadn’t been time to discuss what they would do with Jackass once they’d found him. At first, he’d assumed he would locate Ian and Cami, then do what he could to bring in the man hunting them—alive—then turn him over to the police. But as they traveled deeper into the Glades, he’d started to wonder if that was what Dante had wanted from him.

  She let out a breath. “I…I don’t know what they intend to do about the hunter.”

  He stepped closer. When she didn’t look at him, he touched her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. “I think I do. If push comes to shove, and it boils down to saving your mom and Ian, or you, I’ll do what’s necessary to resolve the situation. But like I told you, I’m not an assassin. If I can, I plan to bring Jackass to the authorities, not shoot to kill. I’m now part of this and have no intention of doing time because CORE decided to not play by the rules.”

  “I don’t want that to happen, but you’re right. Jackass could do this again.” She took a step back. “If he’s arrested, I have no doubt that he’d be convicted, but for how long? He could be out in a few years and try something worse.” She met his gaze. “We’ll need to contact CORE. They need to weigh in on this.”

  “Except if they give you the answer I’m suspecting they will, who’s going to play executioner?”

  She blinked several times before looking away. “Let’s just keep going. We can figure this out later, after we talk to Dante again.”

  Taking the lead, he started for the mangroves. As they climbed over gnarly roots, he knew in his gut what Dante and his team expected from them. He also suspected Lola did, too. Jackass wouldn’t be the first man he’d killed, but the others had died while he had been fighting for his country. If he was right, what Dante was asking them to do wasn’t just vigilantism, but a sanctioned kill.

  Bottom line—it was murder and he wanted no part of it. One Monahan in prison was enough.

  CORE Offices, Chicago, Illinois

  Thursday, 9:36 a.m. Central Standard Time

  John woke, jerking his head off the top of his desk. Another knock came at his closed office door. He quickly grabbed his cell phone and checked the time. “Shit.” He gathered the file he’d been looking through before he’d fallen asleep. “I’ll be right there,” he called to whoever had been knocking.

  “Hurry,” Rachel said. “We have Harrison on the phone. He’s at Jordan’s house.”

  Anticipation swam in his stomach. This could be it—his one-way ticket to the Everglades. If Harrison had found the evidence they’d needed, they would know who their hunter was and would no longer have to worry about his threats.

  A dead man’s threats were worthless.

  Snagging the file from his desk, he rushed from the office. He reached the evidence and evaluation room the same time Hudson did, and half-smiled. “Are you interested in spending the rest of Thanksgiving in Florida?” he asked Hudson.

  Hudson nodded and returned the grin. “Hell, yeah. I hate the snow. But I do love a good hunt.”

  “Don’t pack your bags yet,” Dante said. “Harrison, repeat what you just told me.”

  “When no one came to the door, Vlad broke in via the garage service door and found a Chevy Impala. It’s missing the rear license plate, and in its place was a piece of paper with FUCORE written in all caps.”

  “The bastard is taunting us,” Owen said.

  “Let him.” John shrugged. “This is good and all the link we need.”

  Dante held up a hand. “Not quite. Harrison, go on.”

  “We figured the same—that this was the link to the hunter—but decided before we called it in, we’d see if we could get inside the house. Vlad got us in through the garage and…Jordan is dead.”

  In a heartb
eat, John’s earlier anticipation switched to dread. “How?”

  “Looks like he OD’d. I’m looking at him right now. He’s lying on the couch…there’s an empty bottle of bourbon next to him, along with pill bottles.”

  “What kind of pills?” Rachel asked.

  “Cialis, Aldactone and Zoloft. All of the bottles are empty.”

  Rachel typed away, then hovered her fingers over the keyboard and stared at the screen. “Cialis is for erectile dysfunction, Aldactone is for blood pressure and Zoloft is an antidepressant. I’m not sure about Cialis or Aldactone, but you can definitely die from an overdose of Zoloft.”

  “Either way, Jordon obviously isn’t our hunter and didn’t leave that note,” Hudson said. “What’s the house look like? Any evidence of foul play?”

  “The house is clean. Nothing seems out of place. I just walked into the kitchen and there’s not even a dish in the sink.”

  Owen took a seat next to his wife. “Has rigor mortis set in? You know, is he stiff?”

  “Christ, you want me to touch him? He’s all gray and, God, does it smell in here.” Harrison let out a deep breath. “Okay, I have my gloves on…shit, I’m touching him and, no, he’s not stiff.”

  John leaned back in his chair. “Jordan has been dead for over twenty-four hours.”

  “How do you know?” Harrison asked.

  “Rigor mortis begins about three to four hours after death and reaches maximum stiffness by twelve hours. After a day, it starts to dissipate. You said the body is gray?”

  “Dark gray. His hair is a mess, but he’s dressed like he just finished a round of golf. Hang on a sec,” Harrison said, while the Russian spoke in the background. “I’m going to put you on speaker.”

  “Vlad think someone kill Jordan,” he said in a thick accent. “This stage to look like OD.”

  “Explain,” Dante said, frowning.

  “Jordan have red dots in eyes.”

  “He thinks someone smothered Jordan,” Harrison said.

  Rachel shook her head. “And Vlad would know this how?”

  Harrison cleared his throat. “I don’t think you want to know that.”

  “CORE no worry for Vlad. Vlad not kill a man this way. Bullet much easier.”

  Who the hell was this guy? “Vlad,” John began, “check for markings on Jordan’s neck.”

  “Vlad did. That why Vlad say Jordan smothered.”

  “So no marks?”

  “None,” Harrison answered. “But there’s a throw pillow on the couch with a smear of dried blood.”

  Hudson raised his brows. “Is there blood on Jordan?”

  “Check his nose,” John added.

  “I’m going to puke.” Harrison sounded as if he was gagging. “Hang tight. Okay, let me look. No, I don’t see…wait. Got something. Looks like dried blood on the inside of his nostril.”

  “Vlad right as storm. Jordan smothered. Hunter kill Jordan, leave fuck you note to CORE.”

  “Rain, not storm. But Vlad is right on this,” Harrison said. “Only, why would the hunter kill this guy? I know you guys said Jordon used to work for CORE, but how did the hunter know that? This can’t be a coincidence.”

  “I don’t think it is.” Dante folded his hands and looked around the room. “Harrison, can you find a cell phone, home phone or a planner? Maybe Jordan was expecting company and wrote it down. If he was murdered, could be he knew the man who killed him.”

  “I’m going through his wallet now. There’s no cash, plenty of credit cards…I have a receipt for The Cove Country Club dated three days ago. Here’s another one for Subway, same date but with a time stamp of two-fifteen.”

  “Vlad find no home phone but cell phone on kitchen counter. It dead. Vlad also find no booze in house. Interesting, no?”

  “John,” Rachel began, “in the report you read, didn’t Ian mention something about Jordan needing to enter into drug and alcohol rehab?”

  “Yeah, he did. So if there’s no booze in the house, maybe Jordan had gotten himself clean,” John said, his minding working to piece clues together. “But whomever stopped by for a visit knew Jordan used to be a heavy drinker, brings a bottle of bourbon, finds Jordan’s prescription drugs and stages the overdose after he murders him. But why leave the note after going through the trouble of staging the OD? If the police found Jordan before we did, they’d know something wasn’t right.”

  “I wish we could check with the neighbors and see if they saw anyone stopping by Jordan’s,” Owen said.

  “We’re here, so if you want, me and Vlad to, we can. There’s also a laptop in the office, no day planner, though. I’m sure I can hack into his files and—”

  “No,” Dante said. “If the local authorities suspect foul play, they’ll look at his laptop and see that someone was there days after Jordan died. And we don’t want anything linking back to CORE.”

  “Okay, so what do you want us to do?”

  “Take the FU note from the car and leave, but stick around the area for a while. I’ll call you when we’re ready for you to drive back to Everglade City.” Dante ended the call, then glanced around the room. “Give me your thoughts.”

  “My first one?” Rachel asked. “We just wasted a crap-ton of time looking at the wrong files.”

  “I agree,” John said. “Who we’re after isn’t someone we’ve put away, but someone we’ve worked with.” Damn it. Instead of falling asleep at his desk, he should have been following up on CORE’s past employees.

  “Hold up.” Owen tapped a pen against the edge of the table. “Let’s say the hunter was someone we’ve apprehended, and he’s going after anyone who worked at CORE during the time he was busted. What if we look into cases we’ve all worked on together, and include Jordan and whoever else was working here at the time.”

  Hudson shrugged. “We could, but something about Jordan doesn’t sit right. I’m with John. Why make it look like a suicide and leave us a note?”

  “The note is telling,” Dante said. “But I still have a hard time putting stock into what Vlad and Harrison think they saw. Neither of them has experience working crime scenes. Maybe Jordan did overdose.”

  John considered Vlad’s smothering theory and what little they knew about the man. “I don’t know. It sounds like Vlad might have first-hand experience with murder victims. How? I really don’t care. But I don’t think we should discount what they saw. Or that note.”

  Rachel picked up her coffee mug. “Too bad we can’t bring in the police. If we could get an autopsy on Jordan—”

  “We wouldn’t have it in time, anyway,” Dante said, then looked to Owen. “You said you contacted Rory. What about the others?”

  “While you, Rachel and Hudson were working on old case files, I split Ian’s up between the two of us.” Owen glanced to John. “Looking into Ian’s stash, I found two other cases of interest that involved former CORE agents.”

  “Wait, you spoke with Rory?” John asked. Damn, he really should have pounded more coffee to stay awake.

  “His number was in one of the files, so I called it. After all these years I figured it would have been disconnected, but Rory still lives in Chicago. He’s currently selling cars at a Honda dealership. He actually tried to talk me into buying an Odyssey.”

  How one went from being a CORE agent to a car salesman, John hadn’t a clue. But between Rory and Jordan, they could knock them off the list. “Who were the other two agents?”

  “Ben Sheppard and Christopher Mann. Neither lasted long. Sheppard was here for about six months, Mann quit after ten. Based on Ian’s notes, I think Sheppard couldn’t hack the job. Too much pressure and too much travel. Mann left because his wife got a job transfer to Seattle. What about you? Did you find anything?”

  Drool on his files. “Sorry, guys,” he said, feeling like a total idiot. “I went to my office to try and reach Terrance Brisbane’s parole officer again, then ended up zonking out for a while. I’ll get to my files now.”

  Rachel grinned. �
��Don’t let Owen fool you. I caught him napping, too.”

  “We’re all tired,” Dante said, and John noticed the exhaustion in the other man’s eyes. “If you haven’t grabbed an hour, try to.”

  He doubted Ian and Cami had the opportunity to grab an hour of sleep. They had to be exhausted…and scared.

  Like caffeine, adrenaline and fear could only sustain a person for so long. He just hoped to God Ian and Cami lasted long enough to be rescued.

  Chapter 7

  Somewhere in the Everglades, Florida

  Thursday, 10:58 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

  “THE GRASS IS moving.” Cami motioned toward the right where the one-foot blades shook. “Please lie to me and tell me that’s just the wind.”

  “It’s just the wind,” Ian lied, and glanced around to find another avenue they could go. Unfortunately, they had only two options—travel through the sawgrass marsh, or turn back the way they’d come and risk running into the bastard hunting them. Option one didn’t appeal to him, especially because they would be exposed and the marsh was home to deadly animals, like snakes and alligators. Plus, the next set of trees looked to be at least a mile away, if not farther. From where they stood, it was too difficult to gauge and the longer they remained here, the better the chance of the bastard catching up with them.

  “Liar,” she said, edging closer to the marsh. “It must’ve rained recently. The grass looks like it’s sitting in a couple of inches of water. I hope the rest of the field isn’t the same.”

  He found a thick stick and picked it up. “Sorry, hon, this isn’t like any field you’re used to seeing.” He knocked the blades with the stick. “This also isn’t real grass, it’s called sawgrass and grows in the water.”

  She looked at him, her eyes wide with anxiety. “Please tell me you’re still lying.”

  “I wish I could. But don’t worry about it. I don’t think the water level is too deep, maybe a foot or two at the most in some places. And once we reach the other side, we’ll be back on dry ground.”